Experimentation: Winning experience in streaming

The competition for consumer attention is becoming more intense than ever.

Along with the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, large traditional media companies, such as Walt Disney, WarnerMedia, and NBCUniversal, are bringing their own streaming services to market. The race is on.

So what’s going to secure pole position in this ever-more crowded field? There are clear limits to what consumers are prepared to pay out for subscriptions. Research suggests that most (60 percent) say $20 per month is their threshold, and 80 percent say no more than $40. So with those limits, most consumers will likely stick to just three to five services. And those that already subscribe to one of the e stablished brands such as Netflix or Hulu become increasingly attached to them as time goes by. New entrants that seek to dislodge those de facto incumbents and insert themselves into consumers’ affections face stiff competition. So how should they compete? Price and content will be important, of course.

Content? Yes. Price? Agreed. But what about experience?

But there’s another dimension that will prove highly influential: experience. Recent Accenture research found that among users of Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, 21 percent attribute “overall experience” as a top reason to leave a service, and 50 percent attribute “overall experience” as the top reason to stay.

What do we mean by experience? It’s much more than having technology that works or an appealing UI. Experience covers every interaction that a consumer has with a service or platform throughout their entire journey. From receiving promotional offers, signing up for the service and downloading the app, to navigating the platform, discovering and engaging with the content and dealing with customer service, each and every one of those moments presents an opportunity for a subscriber to love or hate their experience.

Accenture research has found that streaming services that provide simplicity and increasing relevance (or personalization) at each of those moments, score higher on subscriber affinity and ultimately retention, with 62 percent of customers switching when a streaming service lacks personal relevance.

Experimentation is the rocket fuel to accelerate experience enhancement

How can companies stay ahead in a world requiring continuous evolution? If they want to evolve and enhance their customer experience, and potentially outpace the incumbent players, new streaming services need to adopt a culture of experimentation. For a streaming service, experimentation means trying out new ideas to win on experience. How? By committing to continuous improvement fueled by a deliberate, data-driven method of testing experience enhancements with a subset of subscribers—across product, marketing and service— to identify the best features to roll-out across the entire subscriber base.

Benefits of experimentation

Like rocket fuel, it can accelerate the release of experience-enhancing features.

Getting started

Experimentation offers streaming services the best way to maximize the changes of developing and delivering a constantly refreshed and relevant experience that will keep consumers coming back for more. So how should those new to the concept get started?